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Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Friday, 30 August 2013 05:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
intellectual debate, sans a culture of transparency and effective right to information, and ignoring leaders of businesses, academics, professions and civil society (excluding the network partners and captured few within the inner circle of the Central Bank and the Treasury), deliver sustainable, equitable and social justice assured, long term growth and prosperity for all citizens of Sri Lanka?
Critical question
The critical question to be answered now is: “If there is no openness and credibility in governance, a culture of transparency with a right to information, freedom of expression with open intellectual debate on national and socioeconomic issues and policy prescriptions involving all segments of society, will the objective of creating a virtuous cycle, aiding rapid and sound socio economic growth in the country be realised?”
The effective medicine to administer for the current illness is possibly available within the easy collective reach of the excluded segments of civil society; they must engage in open intellectual debate on national and socioeconomic issues and policy prescriptions of the State and collectively advocate for necessary reforms and changes; and present cogent arguments for such change before the policymakers of the Executive.
In the absence of effective debate on national and socioeconomic issues and policy prescriptions of the State, over the Legislature and media, the collective responsibility for same falls fairly and squarely in the court of leaders of businesses, academics, professions and civil society. These 
excluded segments from the virtuous cycle creating harmonious grouping referred to earlier, must accept the inevitability of any such attempt to engage in an open intellectual debate will meet with resistance and challenge.
In the context of the media adopting a self censorship, State media labelling those engaged in open intellectual debates as traitors and the Legislature ineffective and impotent to play its expected role, the Opposition paralysed by the overwhelming majority and shouting out power of the Government ranks, the vital role of effective of engagement in debating national and socioeconomic issues and policy prescriptions must be taken on by the leaders of businesses, academics, professions and civil society.
Should not the collective of leaders of businesses, academia, professions and civil society, with the active support of independent professional strategic think tank groups not already captured by the State, be focused on the essential need to debate the undernoted priority issues;
1. A critique of the present monetary and fiscal policy prescriptions and its impact on citizens, business, financial services sector, export sector, trade/investment and technology partners, etc.
2. Standard and Poor’s amber light warning signal that the financial development weaknesses in Sri Lanka, due to high Government debt, reliance on external financing and concerns raised over the credit worthiness of the country and likely impact on future Sovereign Bond ratings and issuance attractiveness. This debate assumes greater importance in the context of the heavy dependence on unsustainable growth expectations in worker inward remittances for longer term balance of payment support.
3. The fiscal gap of Sri Lanka and risks of Sri Lanka facing in external debt crisis in the medium to long term.
4. The ‘way forward’ suggested by the new Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, in his acceptance of office speech earlier this year, when he pronounced the undernoted four truths:
a. “We are a small nation both in terms of population and size of economy. Too small in fact, to achieve sustainable growth by doing business amongst ourselves. We are also an import-dependent country. Both of these suggest that prosperity will come to us only if we become an export-centric nation.”
b. “Sri Lanka is home to four of the world’s great religions. And each one of these teaches us that the path to wellbeing lies in attaining harmony and co-existence between human beings. Yet Sri Lanka is not at peace with herself. Our society is marked by tensions driven by a fear of the ‘other,’ of those we perceive to be different from our own selves. To truly move forward as a nation, we must celebrate our diversity, not fear it.”
c. “Over the years, each succeeding Government has brought new pressures on our systems of governance. Increasingly, our society is called upon to rely on the goodness of our leadership rather than on the strengths of our institutions. Yet, we know from experience that successful societies are underpinned by strong institutions. Sri Lanka must not aim to be an exception.”
d. “Education in the sciences yes, because we need to compete and succeed in overseas markets but also education that leads us towards becoming a mature society. A society that cherishes democratic ideals, meritocracy, hard work and responsibility amongst others.”
5. The ‘critical challenges’ in the development of the exports sector as raised by the outgoing Chairperson of the Exports Section of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, when she pronounced thus: “Sri Lankan exporters want the government to reapply for EU GSP+ trade concessions, because it would reenergise the country’s exports sector, help regain its competitive edge, recover lost ground and lead to exponential growth.”
6. The inconvenient truth as pronounced by Dr. Razeen Sally when he wrote recently: “The IMF report identifies middle-income countries in East and South Asia as those with per-capita incomes of US$ 2,000-15,000. Its reading of the evidence is that there is indeed a middle income trap, and Asian countries need to reform policies and institutions to get out of it. These second - generation reforms have to go beyond liberalisation of product markets to encompass deregulation of factor markets (for land, labour and capital). They must also include opening up of services sectors, upgrading ‘soft infrastructure’ (such as higher education and skills), and improving the quality of public administration, regulatory agencies and judicial systems.
7.The Central Bank Governor’s public pronouncement when meeting the business delegation from Israel recently that Sri Lanka no longer seeks aid but only trade. Media report did not highlight that that he had concurrently referred to the critical need for investments, appropriate value adding network alliances and technology and best practice transfers. His invitation also appeared restrictive in that the Israel delegation was pointed in the direction of services and tourism sector linked investments and did not target the promotion of value added exports based investments, using competitive advantage leading technology and best practice transfers and alliances.
8.The Central Bank Governor’s stated next key objective for delivery to the President focusing on Sri Lanka by 2016 gaining the 30th place in the ‘Ease of Doing Business Index’ from the current 81st place out of 185 assessed nations and taking as the first step in that direction by elevation to the 70th place.
9. The ‘Mahinda Chinthana’-led ‘Priority Focus for Infrastructure and Policy Support’ being in respect of naval, aviation, commercial, energy and knowledge hubs being created with priority given to the tourism services, with an apparent low focus on value added exports as being the priority for sustainable growth.
10. The essential need for a professionally executed ‘balanced foreign policy,’ which is aligned to the investment, trade and technology transfer needs for growth, especially tweaked to develop close good relations with our key trade, investment and technology partners in the Western world and India.
11. The need to critically look beyond the prima facie poverty statistics and per capita growth numbers and examine drivers of growth, equity, sustainability and hidden risks of tomorrow in delivering prosperity and well being of all citizens, especially the vulnerable members of society.
12. Governance issues linked to security, safety, human rights and democratic freedoms of citizens, impact of militarisation of administration and businesses, rule of law and justice, effective and equitable allocation of national resources under the effective control of the legislature and control over corruption and waste and eliminating policy capture corruption.
Will the leaders of businesses, academics, professions and civil society, ever be able to look forward to a day, when ‘Fox News’ carbon copy TV station in Sri Lanka, will broadcast a public statement of our President, followed a leading economist clone of Paul Krugman, openly critiquing the public position of the President and analysing the state of the economy expressing fundamental professional opinions. Refer YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sdQ7k5D3EU, In the ‘Talking Point Commentary’ titled ‘Money, Jobs and Race,’ Krugman, with no fear of ‘white vans’ and risks of ‘slinging mud over State media’ openly admits that “the US economy is not strong and the statistics do not look good”.
Leaders of businesses, academics, professions and civil society, must encourage the President, Minister of Economic Development, Secretary Defence, the Speaker of Parliament, the Secretary to the President, the Secretary Treasury and the Governor of the Central Bank Governor to view the YouTube presentation along with all media bosses, for it will then be evident that there is a fundamental missing link in Sri Lanka, which needs correction soon, if the current generation is to enjoy sustained growth and prosperity with equity and social justice.
(The writer is a good governance activist and a former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.)
